A senior Trump administration official is publicly criticizing the idea of a collective “middle powers” strategy among American allies and partners, warning it is a “distraction” that could cost them “time, money and political capital.” In a series of posts on X on Tuesday, Elbridge Colby, the U.S. Undersecretary of Defence for Policy, also pushed back on the idea that...
'There’s a fairly narrow bandwidth that the government is working on internationally,' says Lloyd Axworthy, but other past officials disagree that the PM's method is a 'radical departure,' calling it a 'wonderful opportunity.' Former Liberal top diplomat Lloyd Axworthy says Prime Minister Mark Carney is forgoing consultation in his approach to foreign policy, and that his method is diminishing the...
Amid anemic poll numbers and messy public infighting, some Conservatives worry that fundraising numbers are also taking a hit as Pierre Poilievre struggles to keep his party together. The Conservatives have long maintained a fundraising advantage over the Liberal Party, while in government and on the opposition benches. That edge is a point of pride for the Conservative Party, which...
Prime Minister Mark Carney is playing down the amount of toll profits Canada will share with the United States under a new deal to open the Gordie Howe International Bridge, but his government is so far making no commitment to release the text of the arrangement. The new Windsor-Detroit crossing, along one of Canada’s most important trade corridors, is set...
New polling says favourability for Lewis and vote intention for NDP remain flat. NDP Leader Avi Lewis spent the first 100 days at his party's helm outside of Parliament, and isn't looking for a seat any time soon. But since his election in March, the seatless leader also appears to have made little headway in making a name for himself...
The federal political landscape endures, with the Liberals at 43.0 per cent among committed voters compared with 31.0 per cent for the Conservatives. Mark Carney remains the preferred choice for prime minister at 51.5 per cent. Jobs and the economy continue to be Canadians’ top national concern at 21.5 per cent, followed by cost of living at 12.0 per cent.
There are, it is sometimes said, only six people in Canada who understand the equalization formula, and five of them are dead. This is not entirely a joke. Equalization – the system of federal transfers to provinces whose “fiscal capacity” is judged to be below the national average – has become so overloaded with political fixes over the years, in...
The federal government has gone from a C student to top of the class in its work to advance internal trade between provinces, says the Canadian Federation of Independent Business. In the federation's latest annual report card on internal trade, the federal government jumped to an A-plus from the C grade it got in 2025. The report card released Wednesday...
A court case involving a prominent Alberta separatist who had his assets frozen is set to move forward today. Last week, Justice Michael Marion in Calgary granted an interim injunction freezing up to $8.5 million in assets held by Jeffrey Rath. That injunction is set to be reviewed as part of a legal battle between Rath and Tallcree First Nation...
We lead two countries that do not have the luxury of relying on old orders of geography. Finland shares a border with a Russia that is waging a war of aggression against Ukraine and actively interfering in other societies instead of reforming its own. Canada shares the world’s longest land border with a United States that is reassessing its priorities...
“Rather than sitting here and arguing with each other, we’re actually going to get out there and talk to the people!” That’s how Premier Doug Ford defined the Legislature of Ontario. It was his defence for the unprecedented five-month break and the lowest number of days “The Ledge” will sit in decades.
Conservative MP Dean Allison called a news conference last week to give the media an update on his inquiry into the COVID-19 vaccine. If you’re like me, you’re probably thinking: There’s an inquiry into the COVID-19 vaccine? Why? Mr. Allison was accompanied by a couple of supporters: The husband-and-wife team of Shawn and Theresa Buckley, who run the Covid Testimony...
As sure as summer is upon us, so are the regular tribulations of the federal Conservative Party in opposition. When the federal Conservatives sit in opposition and trail the Liberals in the polls, chances are whoever the leader is not living their best life. Step forward, Pierre Poilievre, it is your turn for a pummelling. Unfortunately for Poilievre, he tends...
The latest agreement between our government and the Trump administration to allow the opening of the Gordie Howe bridge that links Windsor and Detroit is just the latest in a long saga. After much delay and dithering, the bridge was scheduled to be open for business on June 15, 2026, after a planned ribbon cutting on June 12. The plan...
One observer said on CUSMA, Canada has to propose something that allows Trump to take the credit ‘without doing something that’s bad’
“Nice bridge you got there,” the thugs said. “It’d be a shame if something happened to it.” That’s not a verbatim transcript of what U.S. President Donald Trump’s operatives told Prime Minister Mark Carney about the Gordie Howe International Bridge, but it might as well have been. The U.S. President just shook down this country, refusing to allow the opening...
The Gordie Howe International Bridge should have been the easiest file in Canada-U.S. relations. Canada paid roughly $6.4 billion to build the bridge. Michigan received a new international crossing, customs facilities and a direct Interstate 75 connection without paying the construction bill. American workers, contractors and steel producers benefited. Automakers gained a badly needed alternative to the aging Ambassador Bridge...
Prime Minister Mark Carney’s charm—and that, he has in abundance—may be wearing thin with some Canadians. His recent enthusiastic endorsement of another oil pipeline, intended eventually to carry another 100 million barrels a day of Alberta oil to foreign buyers, will surprise only those who have not been paying close attention. Carney has shredded most of Justin Trudeau’s green policies...
Prime Minister Mark Carney has a plan to “modernize” the Senate. If this sounds familiar, it’s likely because his predecessor, Justin Trudeau, said the same thing 11 years ago. Trudeau’s reform measures sought to eliminate partisanship from Senate appointments—or at least to create this appearance—Carney is bringing back partisan appointments. While proponents of democracy and political equality are likely not...
Sandwiched between 25 other news releases last week — from the prime minister’s NATO trip, to his lunch with Saudi Arabia Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman — the man the CIA believes ordered the assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi — Mark Carney moved to drown out the opposition voices he’s encountered in the Senate. In a statement Tuesday, Carney announced...
“O Canada” was played in Saudi Arabia this week for the first time in 26 years. That quarter-century silence tells the real story behind Mark Carney’s visit to Jeddah. The last Canadian prime minister to visit Saudi Arabia was Jean Chrétien, in 2000, during a 12-day Middle East tour driven by a very different ambition: to reinforce Canada’s role as...
Prime Minister Mark Carney’s way of communicating and branding things is so distinct that some choice Carneyisms have crept into everyday Canadian speech over the year and a half he’s been a daily national presence. We don’t have plans or policies in this country right now – everything is a strategy. Public money purportedly luring private investment is, of course...
Serious times call for serious politics. That means serious leaders offering serious solutions. If all this sounds like a campaign slogan for the establishment, you’re probably right. But its rising resonance may well prove the unravelling of the conservative populist rage that has been driving politics in Canada, the United States and Europe.
Mark Carney is committing enormous sums of public money with little explanation, in ways that neither Justin Trudeau nor most other prime ministers before him could have gotten away with. It can be easy to look past, because of the financial gravitas that Carney carries.
Federal Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre provoked a backlash this week with an ill-advised comment on the outcome of the race for the leadership of the B.C. party of the same name. At a party event in Calgary, Poilievre took note of the presence of the new leader of the B.C. Conservatives, Kerry-Lynne Findlay, hailing her as the “future premier of...
Annual gatherings of the great democracies in the age of Donald Trump have acquired a certain … rhythm. There is the meeting that takes place before the President arrives, when all is as it usually is between world leaders of the same broad ideological hue: convivial open sessions, chummy photo-ops, urgent side-conferences. Then there is what happens after he gets...
When Elon Musk bought Twitter in 2022, he promised to restore its commitment to free speech, eliminate its progressive bias and otherwise preserve its role as the “de-facto public square.” Instead, as anyone who has had the misfortune of spending time there knows, he turned it into a right-wing echo chamber — one increasingly populated with spam, crypto scammers and...
Real life does not follow the binary framework of the movies, where a Bond-like hero vanquishes a grandiose, arrogant, greedy villain
It’s not often that a prime minister is lauded for something that he doesn’t do, but Prime Minister Mark Carney is currently being celebrated by six policy organizations for his inaction on an important Canadian regulatory matter. In an open letter published late last month, the CEO of the Canadian Health Policy Institute, the deputy director of domestic policy for...
I am sick to death of being told that wanting Conservatives to win elections somehow makes me a Liberal. It's one of the stupidest ideas ever to infect the Canadian political right (and there have been some doozies in recent years), and it has become an excuse for failure. Apparently, if you care whether Conservatives can actually form government, you're...
The grandaddy of all Stampede political announcements came on July 12, 2004, when PC Premier Ralph Klein held up a sign that said: Paid In Full. Klein declared the provincial debt dead and buried after many years of harsh cost-cutting. The words and the photo sped around the country and beyond. Nobody paid off all debt in those days. Within...
There are plenty of ways to celebrate America’s ongoing semiquincentennial: see a fight on the White House lawn, watch the World Cup in the shadow of the Capitol, visit a Great American State Fair on the National Mall. However they celebrate, Americans will likely see banners advertising Freedom250, a private vehicle for outright corruption cooked up by President Donald Trump...
He's not giving up. He's not backing down. If he was a boxer you'd need to knock him out. The man insists he is not throwing in the towel. He will continue to throw down the gauntlet. Wasn't so long ago Pierre Poilievre had the momentum, drew the huge crowds at rallies across Canada, attracted the young and the working...
I’m starting to believe that Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is the subject of an elaborate, prolonged hazing ritual. The frat house in this scenario might have better decorum and nicer furniture than those found on college campuses, but the initiation process is the same: subject the pledge to a succession of humiliating rituals to see if and how long he...
First Nations leaders attending the Assembly of First Nations annual general meeting in Ottawa today are expected to debate the terms of an upcoming meeting with Prime Minister Mark Carney and the premiers and territorial leaders. In her opening remarks to the gathering Tuesday, Assembly of First Nations National Chief Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak said a planned meeting this fall between...
Hamilton is expected to vote today on whether to become the first city in Canada to put a temporary pause on new data centres. The moratorium vote comes as local lawmakers across the country wrestle with the noise, energy and water concerns around a new wave of data centres powering the boom in artificial intelligence. Backers of Hamilton's proposal say...
An Alberta court has temporarily frozen up to $8.5 million in assets held by one of the province's most recognizable separatist leaders. Justice Michael Marion granted an interim injunction last week preventing Jeffrey Rath and his law firm from transferring the assets until a Wednesday hearing. It's part of an ongoing legal battle between the Tallcree First Nation and Rath...
A former federal politician denies trafficking any firearms but acknowledges he illegally transferred three guns, after police seized hundreds of weapons from his western Manitoba home last week.
The federal government is creating a research facility to advance Canada's military capabilities with drones. National Defence Minister David McGuinty was in Mirabel, Que., home to a major aerospace hub, to make the announcement. A group of 30 organizations, led by Aero Montreal, will receive nearly $30 million over two years to establish and operate the new defence innovation centre...
The Law Society of Ontario is investigating charges that onetime Liberal MP may have misappropriated trust money and participated in fraud Ontario’s legal regulator is moving to suspend the licence of lawyer Raj Grewal as the former Liberal MP faces a slew of lawsuits accusing him, the law firm he founded, family members and associates of millions of dollars in...
Despite record losses and a massive government bailout, Canada Post handed its executives and managers $30.8 million in performance-based payments in 2025. Canada Post reported an unprecedented $1.57 billion in losses before tax in 2025 – the most it has ever recorded. As the federal crown corporation continues to hemorrhage money, Ottawa recently approved a bailout of up to $67...
With the summer heat lulling our national pollsters into a polling siesta, the only two surveys with federal voting intentions published over the last week came from the two tracking pollsters, Liaison Strategies and Nanos Research. That dearth of data from a broad array of pollsters — since mid-June, the only other pollster to put out any new numbers was...
More than 70 per cent of contracts awarded under the federal government’s new Buy Canadian procurement policy have gone to foreign-owned subsidiaries
A planned meeting this fall between first ministers and chiefs from across the country was hard to secure and must not be the only one of its kind, Assembly of First Nations National Chief Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak said Tuesday. In her opening remarks at the AFN's annual general assembly in Ottawa, Woodhouse Nepinak told chiefs the Prime Minister's Office has...
The Carney government is replacing former broadcast journalist Tom Clark as consul general to New York City with an oil executive, and naming a former cabinet minister as Canada's envoy in Los Angeles. The Trudeau government appointed Clark, a former CTV and Global journalist, to the post in 2023. The consul general promotes Canada's economic and cultural interests in the...
After multiple delays, the Gordie Howe International Bridge has, once again, a new opening date — and this time, it appears to be sticking. Canadian business groups are welcoming the news that Canada and the U.S. have struck a deal to open the 2.5-kilometre Windsor-Detroit bridge on July 27.
A former government scientist faces criminal charges after allegedly downloading thousands of work files from the Department of Natural Resources to external storage drives to further a new career in China, court records show. According to a security report prepared by Natural Resources, the accused, 66-year-old Dennis Lu, has expertise in technology that can be used to purify graphite, a...
Canada's national war and history museums say they would have to conduct a review before they could display a personalized revolver and ammunition given to Prime Minister Mark Carney at this year's NATO summit. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan gave each visiting NATO leader a handgun with their name engraved on it as a gift at the conclusion of the...
A judge has temporarily frozen more than $8.5-million in assets belonging to Jeffrey Rath, a lawyer and prominent voice in Alberta’s separatist movement, and his legal firm after a First Nation alleged misappropriation of money that he was overseeing as the band’s trustee. Alberta Court of King’s Bench Justice Michael Marion issued the freezing order, known as a Mareva injunction...
Hundreds of First Nations chiefs are gathering in Ottawa today for the Assembly of First Nations annual meeting. They'll be debating 53 separate resolutions during the three-day gathering. They include resolutions on the federal government's major projects agenda, the state of First Nations child welfare, Indian Act status and calls for the Vatican to rescind a series of papal decrees...
Ottawa is establishing a new secure facility for industry to test and experiment with uncrewed systems, as part of an effort to accelerate the development of the technology which the federal government is placing an emphasis on through its defence build-up. In an announcement on Tuesday, Defence Minister David McGuinty said the Uncrewed Systems Defence Innovation Secure Hub will be...
The Green Party has been declared unofficial winner in a Prince Edward Island byelection that gives it the same number of seats in the legislature as the Opposition Liberals. The provincial byelection in Cornwall-Meadowbank was called after Progressive Conservative cabinet minister Mark McLane died in March. Tayte Willows of the Green Party received almost 1,200 votes, representing nearly 40 per...
Antique cannon, $300K in cash also found at former member of Parliament's home, police say. A former federal politician in Manitoba has been charged after police say they seized hundreds of improperly stored firearms from his home last week. Mounties seized 439 firearms found inside Inky Mark's home near the western Manitoba city of Dauphin during a July 7 search...
Former Nova Scotia premier John Hamm, the Pictou County physician who prescribed belt-tightening for the province's books, has died at age 88. Straight-laced and soft spoken, he was first elected in 1993 and served as Nova Scotia's 25th premier from 1999 to 2006. He first lead a majority government before being held to a minority four years later. But away...
Two other members of Prime Minister Mark Carney’s inner circle are getting a boost as part of a staff shuffle prompted by the appointment of his principal secretary to the Senate and a deputy chief of staff departing to run for office. Three sources told The Globe and Mail that Scott Gilmore, currently Mr. Carney’s senior adviser on foreign, defence...
The Alberta government, Ottawa and five major oilsands producers have signed a memorandum of understanding to advance the multibillion-dollar Pathways carbon capture and storage project. The Pathways project is a condition for a new West Coast oilsands pipeline moving ahead, and would serve to offset some of the carbon emissions that infrastructure would enable. The governments have agreed to pursue...
U.S. President Donald Trump said Monday that the United States is “reinstating” a blockade on Iran in the Strait of Hormuz and will charge ships for safe passage, after another heavy exchange of fire threatened negotiations aimed at ending the war. He said on social media that Iranian ships will no longer be able to travel through the strait and...
The charity has met with several government figures during Michael Sabia’s tenure as Canada top civil servant, but says he was not involved
IFM Investors and Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth vehicle are confirmed for the event in Toronto on Sept. 14 and 15
Prime Minister Mark Carney is shifting around some of the senior advisers in his office in a series of moves some Liberal strategists said shows he is putting his own stamp on government. Scott Gilmore, Carney's senior adviser on foreign, defence and security policy, will become the prime minister's principal secretary on July 22. He replaces Tom Pitfield, who was...
When Prime Minister Mark Carney visited this year's Calgary Stampede, he didn't ditch his blazer, but he was wearing blue jeans and the requisite cowboy hat as he worked the crowds among revellers preparing to watch chuckwagon races on Saturday evening. "There he is!" Carney said, as he spotted billionaire businessman Ron Mannix almost immediately upon exiting a motorcade with...
Shortly before the House of Commons rose for the summer, Prime Minister Carney and AI Minister Evan Solomon released their long awaited and repeatedly delayed AI strategy, ‘AI for All.’ The strategy served as an update, and in some cases a duplication, of the preexisting Pan-Canadian Artificial Intelligence Strategy put forward by the Trudeau government in 2017; and comes just...
Prime Minister Mark Carney wants Canada to be a leader in the artificial intelligence revolution. NDP Leader Avi Lewis is betting Canadians want to pump the brakes. From the Hamilton Harbour to rural Saskatchewan, some communities are pushing back against proposals for massive data centres meant to power the AI boom with billions of dollars in investment despite fears about...
Seventeen months into Prime Minister Mark Carney’s mandate, as the Liberals continue to enjoy strong public support across the country, a series of senior staffing changes are underway in the Prime Minister’s Office and in the offices of several senior cabinet ministers. At the same time, MPs, ministerial staffers, and political insiders are increasingly speculating that a cabinet shuffle could...
President Donald Trump has endorsed MyPillow founder Mike Lindell for Minnesota governor, praising him as "one of America's greatest and most hard working Patriots."
NEW YORK (AP) -- Former President Joe Biden will publish a memoir this fall, publisher Little, Brown and Company told The Associated Press.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Donald Trump will deliver a primetime address this week that he says will include a focus on elections, suggesting he could revisit long-debunked conspiracy theories about his 2020 defeat to Democrat Joe Biden. The speech comes as he's escalated calls for Republicans to pass tighter federal voting rules for November's midterm elections.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- A large coalition led by the Rev. Al Sharpton and the family of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. will mark the anniversary of the historic March on Washington next month with a march for democracy.
A senior Trump administration official is publicly criticizing the idea of a collective “middle powers” strategy among American allies and partners, warning it is a “distraction” that could cost them “time, money and political capital.” In a series of posts on X on Tuesday, Elbridge Colby, the U.S. Undersecretary of Defence for Policy, also pushed back on the idea that...
U.S. President Donald Trump said Monday that the United States is “reinstating” a blockade on Iran in the Strait of Hormuz and will charge ships for safe passage, after another heavy exchange of fire threatened negotiations aimed at ending the war. He said on social media that Iranian ships will no longer be able to travel through the strait and...
Sen. Lindsey Graham, one of President Donald Trump's closest allies in Congress who traveled the globe to advocate for a more aggressive U.S. foreign policy, has died after a "brief and sudden illness," his office said. He was 71. The statement posted on social media early Sunday said his family "appreciates prayers at this time and asks for privacy during...
Iran said it considers the Strait of Hormuz closed once again after a vessel using an "unauthorized route" was struck by a warning shot in the critical waterway, further jeopardizing the already tenuous ceasefire agreement with the United States. The U.S. military said it responded to the attack with fresh strikes on Iran. "The United States is imposing a heavy...
Ottawa won't say whether it will intervene in support of a Winnipeg-born global judge who is asking a U.S. court to reverse sanctions ordered by U.S. President Donald Trump, which have left her unable to use a credit card or most major online vendors. Washington sanctioned International Criminal Court judge Kimberly Prost nearly a year ago, over her work on...
Russia’s Arctic strategy is often misunderstood in Western policy debates. Too much attention remains fixed on President Vladimir Putin, military deployments, or short-term geopolitical crises. This obscures a more important reality for Canada, the United States, and their allies: Russia’s Arctic posture is sustained by a durable network of state corporations, regional authorities, security institutions, and ideological organizations that shape...
In May 2026, the federal government published Powering Canada Strong: A National Strategy for an Electrified Canadian Economy, casting electricity as the backbone of Canada’s economic sovereignty, industrial competitiveness, and climate ambition.
The federal government’s unpredictable, fragmented approach to funding acts as a constraint on First Nations that are seeking to build long-term governance and community capacity.
A collection of SubStack publishing within Canadian public affairs.
Prime Minister Carney has made clear from the outset of his time in office that without a commitment to implement the Pathways carbon capture and storage (CCS) project, there would be no new bitumen pipeline to the B.C. coast. The expectation was formalized in the Nov. 27 Alberta-Ottawa MOU and the May 15 Implementation Agreement. The oil sands industry has...
An Indigenous couple’s remains, repatriated to Canada six years ago, have yet to find a final resting place because their “spiritual belongings” are being held by museums in the United Kingdom. Six objects associated with Demasduit and Nonosabasut, among the last of the Beothuks of Newfoundland, are being retained by the National Museums Scotland and by the British Museum. Thanks...
Canada’s political and media spheres seem to have developed an unhealthy obsession with the CUSMA. Will it survive the whims and shifting moods of the US president? Will we ever regain the level of access to the American market that we took for granted just a few years ago? What price will we have to pay to preserve what remains...
Reece Martin joins Matt Gurney for a talk about success in the new media, how and why Canada gets infrastructure right and wrong, and mistakes we need to start avoiding.
A new deal between Canada and the U.S. resolves issues around the Gordie Howe International Bridge, which is now set to open on July 27. The bridge – which will become the second bridge connecting Windsor, Ont., and Detroit, Mich., – nearly opened last month, but the ribbon-cutting ceremony was quickly called off after U.S. President Donald Trump refused to...
The Gaza peace plan and ceasefire, announced last October, is in limbo. Israeli forces have continued their strikes and expanded control of the strip beyond the lines originally agreed upon in the plan. Humanitarian aid is trickling in but there are still concerns about how it’s being distributed. The U.S.-led Board of Peace, created to handle the resolution of violence...
It's yet another campaign promise US President Trump has seemed to loosen his commitment towards: not starting forever wars. A mission he projected to last only a few weeks has dragged into its fifth month, with a collapsed ceasefire, renewed rounds of attacks, an ambiguous Strait of Hormuz, and thousands of lives lost.
